HOLDS EMINENCE IN STUDY SHOULD REPLACE EXTRA-CURRICULUM FAME AS GOAL OF UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITY IN COLLEGE WORLD

A few days before I arrived in Cambridge to begin my Freshman year, I received a pamphlet from the "Advocate", telling me how to make a success of college. But when I found that no mention was made in it of the value of studying, I was greatly puzzled. Does it not seem from the advice given here, I thought, that college is a place where one is to devote all his time and energy to gaining distinction in everything but studies, an end in itself rather than a preparation for service to humanity and personal accomplishment in later life? I have since found that the majority of undergraduates fall to consider the future in their anxiety to be great in college.

Private School Graduates Control

It has been pointed out several times that extra-curriculum activities at Harvard are controlled by private school graduates. Since those men come to college with the idea of carrying on this tradition, they are accustomed to look upon studies with unconcern. But in attaching so much importance to acquiring extra-curriculum fame in college, they are not stopping to consider whether they are preparing themselves for future greatness. Of course, I do not mean to argue that college can necessarily produce individuals who will be famous in later life. Yet, it is my opinion that men who are born with natural abilities are likely only to cultivate them superficially at college in their anxiety to become distinguished in undergraduate extra-curriculum affairs.

The athlete, for one, who is worshipped by all the simple-minded undergraduates, will probably do no more than subsist on his athletic reputation all the rest of his life. It will be his excuse for never doing anything great. Indeed, athletic fame, although it is made so much of in the present and occupies the minds of so many persons to the exclusion of everything else, is the least enduring of all fame. A Harvard graduate who distinguishes him-self in public life, writing, teaching, science, or the fine arts will be remembered when all the athletes in his class are forgotten. As the mental powers of the average undergraduate are very limited and he is anxious to distinguish himself in some way, he turns to athletics. Hence the preeminence of athletics in our universities today. Athletics are supported by small-minded men and largely participated in by small-minded men. They will not produce great men.

Convention Aids Private School Men

Private school graduates are able to control the managership and other competitions at Harvard because of the existence of a vast network of convention. The conventional meshes are so arranged that private school graduates can get through them while the public school graduates are excluded. This state of affairs is made possible because of the fact that certain private schools are sending men to Harvard every year in groups, while the public school men often come singly from schools scattered all over the country. At present, the private school men are united and elect the class officers, while the public school men, feeling that they cannot break down the bulwark of convention set up by the private school men, remain disunited. So with every advantage on their side, private school graduates condemn studies, and in their desire to be great little men, go out for competitions. Then when they attain distinction in extra-curriculum activities, they consider themselves the prominent undergraduates of Harvard College, and look forward to seeing their splendid achievements carefully enumerated in the newspapers when they become engaged, or inherit family, money. Not only is the whole system of competitions highly conventional, but the competitions themselves are just as much so. A candidate does exactly what scores of candidates have done before him, for he delivers his mind, body, and soul to eight weeks or more of conventional toil. If he is possessed of any personality or will-power, it does not take him long to lose it. After he has won his coveted honor, if it be a place on the "Lampoon," for instance, he is initiated in a conventional manner in the presence of all his conventional brothers. Now his heart swells with pride and he walks down Massachusetts avenue just as if he actually were a great man. But greatness will probably never be a possibility with him. He has fixed his attention on the present without preparing himself for the future. He has become a conventional product of the extra-curriculum activity.

The leaders in undergraduate affairs, with a few exceptions condemn studies. As men who are thought to be great will always be imitated by other men a large number of students holding approminent place in extra-curriculum activities likewise look upon studies with unconcern. This general attitude is strengthened by the existence of two or three conventional phrason...among the most popular of which is the saying that if an undergraduate takes part in extra-curriculum activities, he will "find himself." Of course, what happens to the undergraduate when he goes out for competitions is that he acquires a sort of polish by contact with other men, and in becoming conventional like his fellow undergraduates, learns to be more at case in their presence. A sensible person, on the other hand, does not worry about "finding himself," for he realizes that that in its literal sense, may take a great many years. Instead, he will follow the advice of Bacon, who said that "Natural abilities are like plants: they need pruning by study," and he will observe that Dr. Johnson advises young men to devote themselves to books from their nineteenth to their twenty-fifth year. The abhorrence of being called a "grind," has prompted many undergraduates to change their views about studies. This word is ever present on the tongues of those who consider the College as a place in which to gain extra-curriculum distinction. Whoever stigmatises his fellow undergraduate as a "grind," should run the risk of being called a more odious name, and just as that term is excluded from polite conversation, so should the ill-sounding word, "grind," be dropped from undergraduate vocabularies. Because he refuses to be conventional, the conscientious student is despised. The idea of the "gentleman's C," which has become a popular excuse for mediocrity, is a conventionality of thought which is turning Harvard from a College into a convenient place to loaf and be great. Fathers accept the grade without complaint; sons, long before they come to college, determine to work for nothing higher. Extra-curriculum distinction, with all its empty pride, false hopes, and insignificant rewards, claims the undergraduate's attention while his books remain closed on his desk. So restless do men become in their covetousness for extra-curriculum fame, that they cannot sit down and concentrate, except, perhaps, the night before an examination, when they will "knock out"" their "gentleman's C." But it is not a "gentleman's C:" it is a "loafer's C." a "small-minded man's C," a " 'great' man's C." Either studies, or fame in undergraduate activities, must be sacrificed, and according to the accepted opinion, extra-curriculum distinction is of more importance. That is to say, by being a great man in college, the undergraduate can afford to be a little man all the rest of his life.

My plea is for a change in the attitude towards studies and for the breaking down of the preeminence of the extra-curriculum activity. I believe that the extra-curriculum activity, as it does little more than restrict the undergraduate's outlook on life and fill him with empty conceit, fails to prepare him for the future. At present, the undergraduate condemns studies in his anxiety to become great in college. But which is more to be desired: fame in college, or fame in later life?

"Athletics are supported by small-minded men and largely participated in by small-minded men. They will not produce great men."

"The leaders in undergraduate affairs with a few exceptions condemn studies."

"The idea of the 'gentleman's C', which has become a popular excuse for mediocrity, is a conventionality of thought which is turning Harvard from a College into a convenient place to loaf and be great. . . Extra-curriculum distinction claims the undergraduate attention."

These quotations are taken from the essay, printed herewith, submitted in the Crimson prize essay contest.